A content design reflection on the development of our new undergraduate online provision
Four years ago, the content designers in our team got started on our project to transform our online provision for prospective students. With the recent launch of the new undergraduate provision, we summarise and reflect on the journey that got us to this point.
Starting with design sprints and a content audit
Things kicked off in spring 2021 when our team ran a series of design sprints to build some consensus with stakeholders about what a future state for prospective student provision might be.
Read our blogs posts on the 2021 design sprints
A year later, with a new team structure and many new team members in place, the content designers in our Content Operations team conducted an audit of the University’s schools’ websites. The goal was to better understand what content they publish aimed at prospective undergrads.
Through the audit, we discovered content gaps in our existing undergraduate degree finder, such as not housing space for:
- alumni profiles
- student blogs, vlogs and podcasts
- images and videos of facilities and other areas
Developing a content model and schema
These audit findings helped inform our first content model for undergraduate study content.
A content model documents all the types of content on your site and breaks them down into their component parts.
For our purposes, the content model was focused on the new undergraduate degree programme content type. What were the different elements a programme profile needed to include, and what did they look like? Who had permission to edit them?
We supplemented the original audit by further investigating school sites and other university sites to see the kinds of content their programme profiles offered to prospective students and how it was displayed.
We added these content gaps to an exhaustive list of potential components (called ‘attributes’) our programme profile could have. We then worked with our user researcher, Pete, to refine this list of attributes based on what we learned about undergraduate prospective student needs.
Content designer Flo then took the lead on creating a content model schema. This was our visual representation of the spreadsheet version of our content model. It showed the relationship between the future degree finder and other sites within the University that support prospective undergraduates.
Creating a content model schema for our future degree finder – Flo’s blog post from March 2023
Our original content model schema that showed how degree programme profile content related to other areas of undergraduate content.
Transforming the content model into a prototype we tested and continually improved
With a refined list of attributes documented, the next step was to transform these into a visual prototype and decide what design components should convey each attribute.
An early prototype of the overview section in undergraduate degree programme profiles.
Co-designing with schools
An important part of the process was the co-design sessions we ran with editors from schools. We used these sessions to get a better idea of business requirements and priorities for the new undergraduate degree finder.
We collaborated with school editors to create content or define requirements for certain attributes.
Redesigning entry requirements
The most challenging task while creating the prototype was designing a new entry requirements experience.
We knew from existing research there were a lot of issues with our existing provision, including confusing terminology and students not recognising the various components that make up entry requirements.
Working with the central Admissions team, we collaborated to design a more tailored experience, presenting prospective students with only the entry requirements that applied to them. We also did a lot of work to better structure the content.
Testing proved pivotal in our design process, as we had to go through a few rounds of testing to address issues we saw and get the design to work for students.
Determining the future of subject pages
We also had to make decisions at this phase beyond the programme profiles themselves. Thanks to the work of our performance analyst, Carla, we decided to remove content from subject area pages which house links to the individual programme profiles.
We learned this content was not getting looked at, so opted for a design that just showed links to the profiles instead.
Why we are removing content from subject area pages – Carla’s blog post from January 2023
Designing the search experience
Also outside of the programme profile design, content designer Heike did some early work to develop our prototype for the search experience in the new degree finder. This built on the early work the team did in design sprints we ran in 2021 before the project kicked off.
Developing a search prototype for our new degree finders – Heike’s blog post from March 2024
Launching a beta and continuing to iterate
After several rounds of testing, we got to a working prototype we developed and launched as a beta. This was a preview of what the new undergraduate profiles would look like, using the content from three different programmes from each of our colleges.
Previewing the future degree profile: our beta launches – Neil’s blog post from September 2023
Through the beta, we got feedback from our users about what was and wasn’t working about our design.
Feedback on our beta undergraduate degree profile pages – Carla’s blog post from December 2023
Critically, we learned that users found it difficult to orientate themselves on the page, and this issue was particularly a problem on mobile.
This led to us adding a new design to the beta that featured:
- increased weight and darker colouring added to headings
- an additional design detail above H2 headings to mark off different subsections better
- increased white space between page elements
These changes led to more positive feedback on the beta, but subsequent testing revealed page orientation issues persisted.
Undergraduate beta programme pages showcase (event summary) – Carla’s blog post from April 2024
Our user researcher Nicola then worked to further enhance the design to what you now see today in the live service. These changes included marking out H2 sections in different coloured boxes in desktop and using an accordion layout in mobile.
The final design for degree programme profiles shows H2 headings marked off in separate boxes and a right-side in-page navigation menu on desktop.
Redeveloping the undergraduate study site
With the design work of the degree finder experience done, we handed over the creation of the 2026 entry undergraduate degree finder to our Content Operation teams. The Continuous Improvement team’s final task was to redevelop the central undergraduate study site.
We started off by auditing the existing site. Our aim was to figure out what content should remain on the site given content changes we have made to undergraduate programme pages.
This audit informed a new information architecture for the site, and then our content designers worked to redevelop or draft the content for the site according to the provisional structure.
We met for a series of content crits for the team to give feedback on the drafts, which led to us further refining the content and the information architecture.
Using content crits to help develop the undergraduate study site – Nicole’s post from March 2025
With working drafts in place, we met with various subject matter experts around the University to ensure the content was accurate and up to date.
Once we had agreed on finalised drafts, we worked to build the new site in our new CMS.
Redeveloping the undergraduate study site – Lauren’s blog post from March 2025
Our reflections
Lauren’s reflections (Senior Content Designer, team manager)
This project has been a rewarding challenge, being the first multidisciplinary software development project I’ve worked on. There were so many new things I had to both learn and teach my team how to do as I was learning. I’m incredibly proud of myself and my team for the ways we have grown through taking on these new challenges.
I’m most proud of the way we’ve been so open about our work along the way, whether through regularly updating our user community through events or blog posts, or directly collaborating with stakeholders to co-design the undergraduate programme profile. As a result of building up trust with our community, we never received any major pushbacks to our designs. I wouldn’t expect that in a project this scale, but that just goes to show how valuable being transparent about your work is.
The icing on the cake for the undergraduate side of the project was when our work was recognised by our sector when we were big winners at the ContentEd 2023 Awards. I know we do great work, but getting external validation from colleagues in the sector makes me even prouder of our ways of working.
We were big winners at the ContentEd 2023 Awards – Lauren’s blog post from October 2023
Flo’s reflections (Content Designer)
I can safely say that I have never learnt more in a short space of time than when working on this project. In the early days of helping develop the content model and creating the schema, the scale and complexity felt intimidating – and having only joined the team a few months prior, I had moments of imposter syndrome.
Looking back, I feel so grateful to have participated in such an interesting and challenging piece of work that would go on to have such a huge impact on prospective applicants and the staff involved in their recruitment. It taught me countless new skills, including content modelling and writing user stories, and helped build my confidence with areas like usability testing and stakeholder liaison.
For me, the highlight of the project was the intense, fiddly and often frustrating work we carried out around entry requirements. The changes we made here – after many weeks of problem-solving, iterating, testing and tweaking – will not only improve the experience for prospective applicants, but reduce unnecessary work for our admissions staff.
Heike’s reflections (Content Designer)
It was a great experience to be part of such a comprehensive project that involved our entire multidisciplinary team. There were plenty of challenges along the way, but they were all opportunities to learn and to grow as a team.
The project allowed me to:
- get more familiar with the degree finder content and the information we are providing for prospective students across the University
- contribute to consolidating content and removing duplication, thus making it easier to navigate and locate the information
- get better insights into what our prospective students need, want to know and how they interact with our content through research activities and usability testing
- acquire new skills through all the different phases of the project (for example, prototyping)
- learn about the new content management system
An added benefit was the chance to work with a wider range of stakeholders, school editors and subject matter experts across the University. Having these contacts and already knowing each other will help with future cooperations to improve content for prospective students.
It was a proud moment to see the results of years of intensive work.
Nicole’s reflections (Content Designer)
Despite only being part of the Continuous Improvement team for the latter part of the project, I feel like I’ve learned so much from being part of this four-year journey. I was mainly involved in the redevelopment of the undergraduate study site.
This is the first project of this scale I’ve been involved in. I think what I enjoyed most is how methodically we worked through everything. From the audit work, to redrafting content in collaboration with SMEs, through to building the site itself, it’s been really satisfying to see how each stage of the project feeds into the next. Every decision we’ve made, regardless of whether it’s big or small, has been based on evidence and our prior learning.
I feel really lucky to have had the chance to get experience in all aspects of content design during this project, including content audits, collaborating with SMEs, information architecture and usability testing.
Prior to this work, carrying out projects of this scale seemed like a daunting task. However, this project has taught me that it all comes down to planning and understanding what you need to know to make the right decisions on behalf of users. Overall, I feel really proud to have been part of a project that will improve the experience of prospective students.
See our new undergraduate online provision
If you’re interested in seeing the finished products of what we’ve been working on the last four years, check out the new undergraduate degree finder and study site.
